OPAZ Board of Directors holds first meeting

Muscat: The Board of Directors (BoD) of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ) held it's the first meeting, presided by Dr Ali bin Masaud Al Sunaidy, at the headquarters of the authority in Muscat.

The BoD discussed OPAZ draft organisational structure, the statute and the legislations governing economic and free zones and reviewed ways of maximising the benefit of the competences granted to the authority to further enhance the level of the services of the One-Stop-Shop in the Special Economic Zones at Duqm (Sezad) and the Free Zones of Salalah, Sohar and Al Mazyunah.

The BoD decided to study to move forward with the procedures of converting the fishing port and the fishery industrial complex into a multi-national port and to turn the fishery industrial complex into food and fishery industrial complex.

During the meeting, the BoD approved the negotiation mechanism for attracting projects that produce clean energy for local use and green hydrogen production projects in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm and Sohar Free Zone, in addition to increasing the area designated for the project by 50 square kilometres to become 150 square kilometres. Additionally, the BoD approved selling Tatweer’s share in Duqm Quarries, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones, to Oman investment authority in coordination with the relevant parties.

The BoD approved that the authority continues to work following the regulations governing the activities of the authority in the coming period and approved a number of change orders for tenders of ongoing projects.

 
Furthermore, the BoD agreed to grant the International Marine Products Incorporation, a subsidiary of Oman Investment Authority to establish the fishing project at an approximated area of 100,000 square metres that the implementation begins in the second half of 2021.

The BoD also discussed environmental affairs regulation including the controls organising environmental permits and regulating their issuance in special economic zones and free zones.

It is worth noting that the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones superintendence four different zones including the Free Zone of Sohar which is 45 km2, managed by Sohar Freezone Company, the Free Zone of Salalah stretching over 21.6 km2, managed by Salalah Freezone company, Al Mazuynah Free Zone which is  14.5 km2, supervised by the Public Establishments for Industrial Estates (Madayn) and OPAZ  is overseeing the Special Economic Zone at Duqm which stretches over a total area of 2,000 km2.

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